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GENEVA / SYRIA HUMANITARIAN UPDATE
STORY: GENEVA / SYRIA HUMANITARIAN UPDATE
TRT: 02:12
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 23 MARCH 2018, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND / RECENT
RECENT, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Wide shot, exterior Palais des Nations
23 MARCH 2018, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
2. Wide shot, briefing room
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Marixie Mercado, UNICEF Spokesperson:
“UNICEF partners report that 17 children were killed yesterday near Idlib when heavy violence near a UNICEF supported school forced children to flee to an underground shelter in a nearby building which then came under attack. Around one million children live amid escalating violence in Idlib, and across Syria over 300 education facilities have been attacked since the beginning of the conflict.”
4. Med shot, journalist
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Marixie Mercado, UNICEF Spokesperson:
“In East Ghouta, as UNICEF gains access to children in areas that have been under siege for the past five years, the scale of the suffering and the trauma thy have endured becomes clear, as does the need for life-saving support.”
6. Wide shot, journalists
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Jens Laerke, OCHA Spokesperson:
“We unfortunately have a steady stream of reports coming out of Eastern Ghouta: of attacks of bombardments, all kinds of illegal weapons being used.”
8. Close up, journalists
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Jens Laerke, OCHA Spokesperson:
“We help those tens of thousands of people who are fleeing and coming out, and as I mentioned the other day, they come out in a really terrible state of mind, and physical condition, it’s horrible. They are traumatized, they are tired, they are hungry, they are thirsty, they are sick, they have been deprived of medical care for month and even years.”
10. Close up, journalist
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Jens Laerke, OCHA Spokesperson:
“The estimate now is 167,00 people have been displaced by fighting in Afrin district. The majority, most of them, 137,000 people have left to Tal Rifaat.”
12. Close up, journalist
13. SOUNDBITE (English) WHO Spokesperson, in English:
“The World Health Organization has deployed mobile health clinics and health supplies to the areas hosting newly displaced people from the Northern Syrian district of Afrin, while our supporting partners are struggling to maintain health services in Afrin city and surrounding areas.”
14. Close up, journalists
15. Med shot, journalists
16. Close up, journalist
As military operations and displacement of civilians continue in Syria, UN humanitarian agencies today (23 Mar) provided an update on the desperate situations of many, including children, in Idlib, Eastern Ghouta and the northern district of Afrin.
UNICEF spokesperson Marixie Mercado said, “17 children were killed yesterday near Idlib when heavy violence near a UNICEF supported school forced children to flee to an underground shelter in a nearby building which then came under attack.”
Mercado added that “around one million children live amid escalating violence in Idlib, and across Syria over 300 education facilities have been attacked since the beginning of the conflict.”
In East Ghouta, she said, “the scale of the suffering and the trauma thy have endured becomes clear - as does the need for life-saving support.”
On March 20, UNICEF reached some 7,000 people, about half of them children, in Nashabieh, Kafr Batna, Hamourieh and Saqba, with support for the first time in almost five years. We were able to bring water, health and nutrition supplies, and in Nashabieh, we have set up mobile health teams and continue to truck water. Before, we had extremely limited access to these communities as they were part of the besieged East Ghouta enclave, and assistance would come mainly through interagency convoys.
According to Mercado, UNICEF staff described children and families in desperate condition, stunned from years of violence and deprivation. UNICEF is also working to respond to the needs of 200,000 people who have left East Ghouta for the collective shelters, as well as inside East Ghouta, with nutrition and medical supplies, clothing, water and hygiene kits UNICEF requires an additional US$20 million for the East Ghouta response.
Jens Laerke of the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said, “we unfortunately have a steady stream of reports coming out of Eastern Ghouta: of attacks of bombardments, all kinds of illegal weapons being used.” Laerke said that the UN could not verify these reports, as it had no access to the besieged area, but that he had no reason to believe that these reports were all false, saying there was no doubt that “horrible” things were going on in the opposition stronghold not far from Damascus.
Laerke said, “we help those tens of thousands of people who are fleeing and coming out, and as I mentioned the other day, they come out in a really terrible state of mind, and physical condition, it’s horrible.” He added that “they are traumatized, they are tired, they are hungry, they are thirsty, they are sick, they have been deprived of medical care for month and even years.”
Asked about the northern Syria area of Afrin where Turkish forces have been battling Kurdish YPG militia, Laerke said, “the estimate is now is 167,00 people have been displaced by fighting in Afrin district. The majority, most of them, 137,000 people have left to Tal Rifaat.”
Fadela Chaib of WHO added that “the World Health Organization has deployed mobile health clinics and health supplies to the areas hosting newly displaced people from the Northern Syrian district of Afrin, while our supporting partners are struggling to maintain health services in Afrin city and surrounding areas.”
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